I started hearing about censorship back in 2018. There were a few YouTube channels that were spreading what some would call conspiracy theories about the health and stability of our economy. And these channels were complaining that their content was getting shut down by YouTube. They were being censored. They claimed innocence but I wasn’t sure I believed them. I tended to believe YouTube was just trying to protect their audience.
Two and a half years later, the trend for censorship has accelerated! For example, Twitter, Facebook & YouTube banned Donald Trump from their platform, basically censoring him. Now, Twitter and Facebook said this was done because Trump was inciting conflict, and the censorship was done to minimize his influence. Again, censorship in the name of protection.
Last week I had a friend share a PragerU video on LinkedIn asking for debate on a national leader's views on capitalism and socialism -- two economic systems that affect business a lot. And after it had received more than 8,000 views, he was notified by LinkedIn (see image below) that his post was removed because it went against their “Professional Community Policies”. This was 100% a very professional and tasteful post that didn’t deserved to be censored. But again, LinkedIn was censoring content in the name of protecting their users.
This week a hilarious story broke out about a group of people on Reddit causing the price of Gamestop (GME) to skyrocket causing a hedge fund to lose billions of dollars and potentially go bankrupt. This Reddit group had realized that this hedge fund had a very large short position, and if they could get the price going up, they would force the hedge fund to liquidate their position losing them billions of dollars. Many involved saw this as a David vs. Goliath situation and took this as an opportunity to get revenge on Wall Street and big banks for taking advantage of them. Many expressed how the Great Financial Crisis caused many Americans to suffer, while the big banks and hedge funds profited. This was their moment to fight back.
But then Discord shut down the Reddit group’s Discord channel (a messaging platform) so they couldn’t communicate with each other. And then Robinhood disabled the ability to trade the very stocks that people were trying to pile into like Gamestop. These are blatant examples of censorship. Who are they trying to protect, their users or the big banks and hedge funds?
This is the problem and danger of censorship in the name of protection. Where do you draw the line?
The entire premise of blockchain technologies is to distribute the power from one central authority towards the majority. Blockchain is the underlying technology that enables decentralized applications like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Because decentralized applications it’s distributed, you can’t shut it down, you can’t tamper it, you can’t censor. Ethereum is the underlying platform that is enabling decentralized exchanges like Uniswap. At Uniswap you never have to worry about them shutting off access to an asset like what Robinhood is doing.
So if you believe in the First Amendment and the Freedom of Speech, then you might want to start learning more about decentralized technology. If you have any concern that censorship will continue and even expand into your money, you might want to start exploring a position in Bitcoin.
The definition of censor is to suppress anything that is deemed unacceptable. The problem with censorship is we are giving power to people and organizations to dictate what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. And as the popular saying goes, “if you give them an inch, they will take a mile!”
Every time I buy Bitcoin, it’s a vote for decreased censorship and increased freedom! Let me know what you think. Feel free to DM me on Instagram, LinkedIn or email me at uintacrypto@gmail.com